In this paper, edge-broad-side coupled spiral resonator (EBC-SR) is proposed to enhance the miniaturization of the metamaterial resonators. After a comparative analysis, it is found that the proposed strategy can drastically reduce the electrical size of metamaterial resonators. This is due to the use, at the same time, advantages of edge coupling, broad-side coupling, and self-coupling. A lumped element equivalent circuit model is proposed for the EBC-SR-loaded transmission line. This model is validated by comparing the results of electromagnetic simulations with the circuit simulations using the extracted parameter values. To validate the proposed strategy, a prototype of the EBC-SR embedded inside a drive loop is fabricated. The experimental results are presented with the simulation results.

Gliricidia sepium (Jacq.) Steud. is widely used as a high-protein supplementary food for ruminants in many parts of the tropics. Native to Central America and Mexico, it has become widely naturalized elsewhere but the introduced populations are mostly of unknown origin and uncertain quality. Studies of the genetic resources from the native range, under a research programme at OFI, have shown great variation between populations in yield (Dunsdon and Simons, 1996). The objective of the research described here was to investigate whether there is also important genetic variation in fodder quality, to inform decisions on future distribution of ‘superior’ germplasm of G. sepium under the OFI programme.

In “African Literature in the Post-Global Age” Tejumola Olaniyan is to be found asking: Where is the world at—and Africa with it? And for Olaniyan, the contemporary world is most ideally mapped as “post-global.” The purview of the post-global—its “field commonsense”—yields a world of humanity beyond the boundaries of nation, race, and territory, joined in commonalities of global need and planetary responsibility. What are the implications of the world thus known for Africanist literary practice? Can it rightly continue to be a particularist practice dedicated in restricted humanist service to Africa known in racialist, nationalist, and nativist particularity? Or ought Africanist practice to direct its humanism expansively to the service of a world in transnational and cosmopolitan linkage? Olaniyan wants Africanist literary practice to be post-global—and therefore universalist. But is Africanist literary practice well served in discarding the particular? This essay is guided in answer by Aimé Césaire’s caveat: “There are two ways to lose oneself: by segregation in the particular or by dilution in the universal.”

We use the exterior and composition products of double forms together with the alternating operator to reformulate Pontrjagin classes and all Pontrjagin numbers in terms of the Riemannian curvature. We show that the alternating operator is obtained by a succession of applications of the first Bianchi sum and we prove some useful identities relating the previous four operations on double forms. As an application, we prove that for a $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}k$ -conformally flat manifold of dimension $n\geq 4k$ , the Pontrjagin classes $P_i$ vanish for any $i\geq k$ . Finally, we study the equality case in an inequality of Thorpe between the Euler–Poincaré characteristic and the $k{\rm th}$ Pontrjagin number of a $4k$ -dimensional Thorpe manifold.

For using the swirling jet for air conditioning and heating in the premises, knowledge of the thermal characteristics is more than necessary. It is for this objective that the experimental and numerical study was realized. To conduct this study, we designed and built an experimental facility to ensure proper conditions of confinement in which we placed five air blowing devices with adjustable vanes, providing multiple swirling turbulent jet with a swirl number S = 0.4. The jets were issued in the same direction and the same spacing defined between them. This study concerned the numerical simulation of the thermal mixing of confined swirling multi-jets, and examined the influence of important parameters of a swirl diffuser system on the performance characteristics. The experimental measurements are also realized for a confined domain, aiming to determine the axial and radial temperature field. The CFD investigations are carried out by an unstructured mesh to discretize the computational domain. In this work, the simulations have been performed using the finite volume method and FLUENT solver, in which the standard k-ε, K-ε realizable, k-ε RNG and the RSM turbulence model were used for turbulence computations. The validation shows that the K-ε RNG model can be used to simulate this case successfully.

The purpose of the present study was to establish the prebiotic effect of a new xylo-oligosaccharide (XOS) and of an inulin-and-XOS mixture (INU–XOS) and to determine their effect on endotoxaemia (lipopolysaccharides (LPS)) and immune parameters. In this randomised, parallel, placebo-controlled, double-blind study, sixty healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to three groups, receiving either 5 g XOS, INU–XOS (3 g inulin +1 g XOS) or an equivalent weight of wheat maltodextrin (placebo) during 4 weeks. Faecal samples were collected to assess the effects of these products on microbiota, as well as SCFA composition, enzymatic activities and secretory IgA production. Circulating LPS was measured in plasma samples, and whole blood was incubated with LPS to measure cytokine expression. Consumption of XOS alone increased the faecal concentrations of Bifidobacterium and butyrate and activities of α-glucosidase and β-glucuronidase, while decreasing the concentrations of acetate and p-cresol. Consumption of XOS in combination with inulin did not decrease the concentrations of acetate and p-cresol, but increased in addition the faecal concentrations of total SCFA and propionate. Furthermore, consumption of XOS in combination with inulin decreased LPS concentrations in blood and attenuated LPS-induced increases in gene expression in IL-1β and LPS-induced decreases in gene expression in IL-13 in blood. In conclusion, consumption of XOS alone or in combination with inulin results in beneficial albeit different changes in the intestinal microbiome on a high-fat diet. In addition, consumption of XOS in combination with inulin attenuates the proinflammatory effects of a high-fat diet in the blood of healthy subjects.

The evolution and distribution of calcium hydroxide, CH, and the development of microstructure during the hydration of three low-calcium fly ash-Portland cement blends with water-solids ratio (w/s) of 0.40 have been investigated. During the first month of hydration, the CH content of the blends was found to be relatively higher than the plain mix, if a dilution effect due to replacement of cement by an inert material is taken into account. After 28 days of hydration the CH content in the blends began to decrease. SEM observations of specimens revealed the occurrence of large, well-crystallized CH plates in intimate contact with some of the fly ash particles at younger ages and even after six months of aging. The study also showed that the chemistry of the pore solution in contact with the hydrating cement system and the characteristics of the fly ashes, such as the glass content and the fineness of the ash particles seem to exert major influences on the rate of evolution of CH in the fly ash blends. Semi-quantitative X-ray diffraction analyses performed on specimens cast against polypropylene plastic plates used to “model coarse aggregates” showed reduction in the thickness of the interfacial zone for the fly ash-Portland cement pastes from about 60μm to less than 15μm within one month of hydration. In the case of the plain Portland cement paste no significant change was observed. The degree of orientation of CH crystals within the interfacial region also was significantly affected by the fly ashes, although by this age of hydration the CH data showed little or no evidence of pozzolanic reaction.

We prove the converse of a theorem of Zaanen about the duality problem of positive $\text{AM}$ -compact operators.

A study was conducted in the humid-forest, forest-savanna, and Guinea savanna zones of West Africa from 1993 to 1999 to examine the effect of managing crop residues from cereal–legume cropping systems for mulch and fodder for sheep. Increasing the proportion of total crop residues produced from a unit area of land and used as mulch increased maize grain yield, soil organic carbon, nitrogen and available phosphorus. The extra increases obtained when more than half the crop residues were applied as mulch were relatively small, however, suggesting that 25–50% of the crop residues could be removed as feed without any detrimental effect. When any crop residues rejected by sheep were mixed with livestock urine and faeces and returned to the respective fields from where the crop residues had been removed, subsequent grain yield and soil organic carbon, nitrogen, and available phosphorus increased. The study demonstrated the possibility of managing crop residues for increased productivity in smallholder mixed crop–livestock systems.

This paper proposes that domestic political conflict presents opportunities for positive change with long-term effects despite the “inherent plausibility” of its harmfulness. This position is tested using examples of Arab bread riots in the context of the wave of Arab democratizations over the past twenty years. Although generally guided and controlled, Arab political liberalizations (especially those of Sudan, Algeria, and Jordan) have their roots in pressure from below. Elsewhere (as in Tunisia and Egypt), similar pressure has helped consolidate—or, at least, place—political reform on the agenda of de-legitimized ruling elites. Democracy and democratization in the Arab Middle East have almost invariably meant a trend toward “parliamentarization” and “electoralization,” without yet presaging polyarchal rule. Between 1985 and 1996, the Arab world has experienced more than twenty pluralist or multiparty parliamentary elections, twice the number that took place in the entire preceding period since the early 1960s, when many Arab countries won independence from colonial rule. A focus on the khubz-iste (the quietist bread seeker who abandons quietism as soon as his livelihood is threatened by the state) and the hitiste (the quietist unemployed who becomes active in bread protests) provides a new perspective on democratization processes in Arab societies.

The effects were evaluated of six methods and six durations of seed treatment on the germination of wild sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia) seeds. The treatments were as follows: (1) hot water at 80 °C, (2) hot water at 100 °C, (3) oven-drying at 80 °C, (4) oven-drying at 100 °C, (5) immersion in concentrated sulphuric acid and (6) immersion in 10% hydrogen peroxide. The durations were 0, 2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 min. Treatment with hot water at 80 or 100 °C for 11–14 min, and oven-drying at 100 °C for 20 min all resulted in more than 65% germination 10 d after treatment. Oven-drying at 80 °C, immersion in concentrated sulphuric acid and in 10% hydrogen peroxide resulted in less than 50% germination. Based on the higher cumulative germination, lower cost, and environmental concerns, hot water treatment at 80 or 100 °C for 11–15 min is recommended.

The profitabilities of three land use systems in the humid zone of southwest Nigeria are compared using a capital budgeting procedure combining on-station and on-farm experimental data. The systems are: non-alley farming with fallow; alley farming with fallow; and continuous alley farming. The results indicate that: continuous alley cropping is more profitable than non-alley or alley cropping with fallow; short fallowing in alley cropping reduces the rate of mining soil fertility and thus helps preserve future productivity; alley farming with small ruminants enhances the profitability of alley systems and increases their advantage over the non-alley system; and alley systems remain profitable even when terminal clearing costs are internalized in the current project cycle.

The effect of managing hedgerow foliage for mulch and fodder in Leucaena leucocephala and Gliricidia sepium alley farming systems on maize grain yield and soil chemical characteristics was studied in on-station and on-farm experiments in southwestern Nigeria. Yields increased as the proportion of mulch applied increased but the extra increases obtained when more than half the foliage was applied as mulch were relatively small, suggesting that half the foliage may be removed as feed without detrimental effect. Soil organic carbon, nitrogen and available phosphorus tended to increase with increasing proportion of prunings applied as mulch.

Follaje para ‘mulch’ y forraje en la agricultura de sendero

Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus strain NST5 exhibited a temperature-dependent defence mechanism against the virulent bacteriophages φ.B1.2 and φA1.1. It was active at 42 °C but not at 30 °C as demonstrated by a significant increase of both plaque size and efficiency of plaquing. This defence mechanism did not affect host-dependent phage replication and did not interfere with phage adsorption to NST5. These results suggest that it interfered with phage development. The phages φT33, φT58, φD1, φT21 and φT9, belonging to the same phage type as φB1.2, were examined for their ability to infect NST3 and NST5. Restriction modification systems of different specificity were detected in NST3 and NST5; host-dependent phage replication was detected at 30 and 42 °C; an abortive defence mechanism was detected in NST5 which was active at 42 °C, but not 30 °C, and was independent of restriction modification action or interference with phage adsorption. Our investigations of phage-host interactions showed that the two Str. salivarius subsp. thermophilus strains studied avoided attack by related bacteriophages by evolving at least three different resistance systems.